The Screen Directors Guild of New Zealand (SDGNZ) has announced that director Florian Habicht – with his film Love Story – is the recipient of the 2011 DGA/SDGNZ Director’s Finder Series Screening. The Director’s Finder screening is a partnership between SDGNZ and the Directors Guild of America (DGA). The purpose of the program is to spotlight undistributed independent feature films from New Zealand and their directors. This marks the third of the joint DGA/SDGNZ screenings.  

Love Story premiered as the opening night film at the New Zealand International Film Festival in July 2011 and is still screening theatrically throughout the country. The film blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and embraces New York City through the eyes of filmmaker Florian Habicht, who both directs and stars in the film.

"In Love Story the ideas are born off the street … it has the real and constructed worlds that I both love, and the two feed off each other. It is the most personal film I’ve made," says Habicht.

Love Story follows Florian’s love affair with a mystery Russian woman (Masha Yakovenko). He first sights her the on subway heading towards Coney Island, carrying only a slice of cake – perfectly balanced on the plate. What happens next in this unconventional love story is literally left to the real-life denizens of New York.

The screening will take place on the 4 November 2011 in the prestigious DGA Theater on Sunset Boulevard. It will be followed by a Q&A session with director Florian Habicht.

The trailer for Love Story can be viewed here: http://www.picturesforanna.com/